


I Miss Him More Than Summer

by JonsaInTheNorth



Series: As The Seasons Turn [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 02:17:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7489461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JonsaInTheNorth/pseuds/JonsaInTheNorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon goes South and never returns to Winterfell, to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Miss Him More Than Summer

**A sennight past he left her, and still the tears stain her pillows.**

Jon is a memory of shadow in every hall, the soft beat of her heart in each embrace, the touch of snow upon her cold cheek on the ramparts. Sansa reaches for the empty, cold side of her bed, a place she wishes for the hundredth time she had told him was his, would always be his.

Instead, she held her treacherous thoughts in.  _We are not Lannisters_. And even when Bran whispered to them in the godswood, Sansa could not say her heart’s desire, did not wish to seem so eager for someone who once was closer blood. 

And now he rides South, for his aunt and freedom. Sansa is left all alone in Winterfell’s walls, cold despite the hot springs that run through them. He rides South, for a family he never knew, for a family that will treat him better than she ever did. 

By day, she is the cold Winter Princess, daughter of Ice and Wolves and Lady of Winterfell. By night, she is still the stupid, foolish girl who went South, the girl Sansa thought did not return.

* * *

**It takes three months for the Wall to fall, for Night to conquer the realm.**

Sansa has stopped crying now, for tears are precious commodities, not to be wasted. She welcomes the denizens of winter town into the First Keep, bars the door to Winterfell’s crypt, and waits for the word of her King.

No message comes, but instead, a Queen.

The dark dragon descends from the sky in a breath of light so unusual in the darkness. It burns a trail of glory through the hordes of the dead, destroying the Northern ancestors and brothers in their tracks. Finally, it lands outside the gates, and Sansa and two Northern Lords emerge from Winterfell’s walls to greet this  Queen.

“Hello, Sansa Stark. I have heard much of you from my nephew.” Daenerys Stormborn says, her words filled with wisdom beyond her young age and small frame. “This Dark Night is nearly over, I promise you. Hold fast your prayers and we will celebrate come the Spring.”

She breaks bread at the High Table, awes Arya with her stories, sleeps in Jon’s old bed, but by morning the dragon and its master have headed to their next battle.

* * *

**A half year later, and the sun breaks on the horizon once more _._**

The Battle for the Dawn is won. A week later, a white raven arrives from Maester Tarly at the remnants of the Wall. Uncharacteristically, it carries a note with it, besides the tidings of Spring.

Sansa grants Maester Tarly leave to build a new Citadel in White Harbour. The other was lost long before the Night began, when one Greyjoy or another unleashed terrors of the deep upon Old Town. Old knowledge has been lost, but new knowledge has been found.

Jon went South with her former husband and the queen. He left her as Wardeness of the North and the only Lady of Winterfell. 

Suitors flock to her side, begging for her hand, promising to love her until the ends of time, anything for her title and her lands. All Sansa can think is,  _but you aren’t Jon._

* * *

**It is seventeen months into the new era when the raven comes.**

Sansa will not go to King’s Landing for the queen’s wedding. Not so long as her father’s words echo in her head. 

_There must always be a Stark in Winterfell._

She could go, she thinks, but Arya makes a better envoy. Arya, who runs the training of the little lords under their protection. Arya, the sister who can barely sit through a council meeting or audience with the smallfolk without sighing or falling asleep. Arya, who returns from the South with a handsome, laughing smith and a glimmer in her eyes that no one has seen since the day Nymeria died to protect her from a wight.

Arya, who regales her with tales of the feast, descriptions of the dancing she knew her sister would miss, and the way Jon looked at his bride.

Sansa cries for the first time in over two years, softly, before she sleeps. He is wed and he is happy, she thinks, that should be enough.

* * *

**Her only son is seven when she finds peace.**

He plays in the training yard, Dragons and Wights, like she once played Knights and Maidens. Her husband gently lifts Rickon up into the browning leaves. She wishes still that his name were Eddard, but it would be an affront to name her child the same as his cousin who would someday sit the iron throne.

Beren Tallhart is kind and soft-spoken, and he loves their son. A second son of a small Northern house, he came only to ask for a position in her household, or somewhere on her lands, for his brother had born two sons already and had no need for his younger brother.

Instead she made him her husband, for the North was in need of an heir, someday, and he can make her laugh. It is enough, she thinks, that he is gentle and kind to her, even if he is a few years younger. He may be no Southern hero, no knight in plate who destroyed great enemies to claim her hand, but he likes to sing songs from before the Dark Night, of  _Florian and Jonquil_ and  _The Bear and the Maiden Fair,_ and he does not ask why she never visits her Southern relations, not even the young Lady of Riverrun.

But seeing him with Rickon melts a part of of her heart she thought long iced off. They are happy and joyful and celebratory together, father smiling at the son that looks so like her brother. 

 _Yes,_ Sansa thinks with a small smile,  _this is enough._

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out and fangirl about Jonsa and other ASOIAF/GOT goodness with me on [tumblr](http://jonsa-in-the-north.tumblr.com).


End file.
